You're reading: Kramatorsk attack shows new separatist firepower

A devastating long-range rocket attack on Ukraine's military headquarters at Kramatorsk shocked the nation on Feb. 10.

Not only did it kill 17 people and wound another 48, including six children, it also showcased the long-range firepower of Russian-backed separatists, hitherto unseen in the conflict. The city of Kramatorsk is some 50 kilometers behind Ukrainian lines and was considered relatively safe before the attack.

Prior to Feb. 10, Kremlin-backed forces had only carried out long-range attacks using less sophisticated Grad and Uragan launchers, which have an effective range of 40 kilometers.

As has become the norm in rocket attacks by both sides, the majority of the unguided missiles missed their intended military target at Kramatorsk airfield, sending shrapnel and cluster munitions flying into apartment blocks, shops and cafes across the city. Nine of those killed were civilians.

An investigation by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe discovered 12 impact craters from Smerch BM30 rockets, fired from a position slightly northeast of the city of Horlivka, an area held by separatists.

The clean-up of deadly cluster munitions, banned under international law, was still under way on Feb. 12, with OSCE experts assisting local authorities in the safe removal of the ordnance. In the two days since the attack, the pyrotechnics team of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service have discovered at least 16 pieces of Smerch ammunition and one cluster element, according to a statement from the service.

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Vyacheslav Tseluiko, an expert for the Ukrainian Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, is certain that Kramatorsk was shelled from Horlivka, which is located some 60 kilometers southeast of Kramatorsk.

“Tornado-S or Smerch multiple rocket launchers could reach Kramatorsk, but Horlivka is the only place they [separatists] could use for shelling the city,” Tseluiko explains, adding that the maximum firing range for a Smerch missile launcher varies from 70 to 90 kilometers. “Apparently they based the weapons in the town of Makiivka and used Horlivka as firing location for the rocket launcher.”

According to a November 2014 report by Armament Research Services, an independent consultancy firm offering technical expertise and analysis on arms and munitions, no Smerch missile launchers were known to have been captured by separatist forces.

Yet one day after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko accused Russia of pouring 9,000 troops and additional military hardware into Ukraine, analysts from open source investigation group Bellingcat discovered a Smerch missile launcher in separatist hands for the first time, moving through Makiivka on Jan. 22.

The Smerch launcher appears to be just one of several increasingly sophisticated military machines sent from Russia to support the separatist offensive in January. On Feb. 5 Bellingcat launched its Russian Military Vehicle Tracking Project in Ukraine, a crowd-sourced effort to track the movements of military vehicles both inside and in the vicinity of Ukraine, primarily to determine if equipment has been transferred across the border from Russia to Ukraine.

Smerch rockets reportedly flew 58 kilometers to hit the city of Kramatorsk from Horlivka on Feb. 10.

 

Bellingcat investigators analyse and verify the photo and video evidence sent in to them, helping to locate it before assessing a report as false or accurate. In doing so, they have been able to ascertain that Russia is providing military support to a separatist assault on the besieged railway city of Debaltseve, where around 8,000 encircled Ukrainian troops are trying to hold out until the introduction of a Feb. 15 ceasefire agreed by the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine in Minsk on Feb. 12.

“In footage coming from separatist sources, we have seen modern Russian Kamaz Vystrel armored vehicles participating in the Debaltseve offensive,” said Bellingcat investigator Veli-Pekka Kivimäki.

“Russian media footage of the event has also shown a specific BMP vehicle filmed last August in Russia.”

For Ivan Yakubets, Ukraine’s airborne forces commander from 1998 to 2005, these latest armament revelations come as no surprise.

“Russia has been sending weaponry since May 2014,” Yakubets told the Kyiv Post, adding that there were no large military bases in either Donetsk or Luhansk oblasts before the start of Russian-backed aggression. Even if separatists had seized Ukrainian weapons, they didn’t seize ammunition stockpiles and should therefore now be running short of ammunition, he argued.

Artemivsk, which is now under control by Ukrainian government forces, “is the only city where there was a military base, so you see they just couldn’t seize much ammunition. They could get some small arms from the police departments or the local Security Service offices, but nothing more. Not for Grads or APCs (armored personnel carriers),” Yakubets said.

Kyiv Post editor Maxim Tucker can be reached at [email protected] or via twitter @MaxRTucker. Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]